New COVID-19 Strain In New York Shares Similarities With South African Variant
NEW COVID-19 STRAIN IN NEW YORK – A year into the coronavirus pandemic, several new strains of the virus have been detected.
Among these strains was the newly discovered B.1.526 variant identified in New York City. Furthermore, researchers said that the strain was responsible for around 12% of the cases in mid February 2021.
Additionally, the virus was said to share similarities with the more transmissible and intractable strain from South Africa. However, researchers failed to detect the presence of newer strains such as the UK coronavirus variant.
Instead, they found “high numbers of this home-grown lineage”. Moreover, according to Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, an assistant professor for infectious disease at Columbia University, the new variant showed “worrying” traits.
According to an article from Reuters, the main concern with the strain was a change in a spike protein called E484K. This mutation was believed to weaken our body’s immune response against the coronavirus.
Along with this, studies on the new variant suggested it was resistant to some of the existing vaccines. Still, recently launched vaccines were more than likely to neutralize the new variants. Likewise, vaccine manufacturers also said that they are developing booster shots to fight mutations of COVID-19.
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